Technology and Cosmology
Since the stories were written before the invention of solid state electronic components, all the electronic technology in this 21st century setting is based on vacuum tubes. At the series' opening there is one major addition to mid-20th century technology called the "driver tube". This is a specialized vacuum tube which (through mechanisms not explained) very efficiently converts the matter of its anode to massive amounts of thrust upon excitation by a low-power source. Powered by batteries, the driver tube enables the multi-G constant-boost spaceships seen throughout the series.
At the series opening both Mars and Venus have been colonized. Both are described as having shirt-sleeve environments in at least some regions.
Read more about this topic: Venus Equilateral
Famous quotes containing the word technology:
“Radio put technology into storytelling and made it sick. TV killed it. Then you were locked into somebody else’s sighting of that story. You no longer had the benefit of making that picture for yourself, using your imagination. Storytelling brings back that humanness that we have lost with TV. You talk to children and they don’t hear you. They are television addicts. Mamas bring them home from the hospital and drag them up in front of the set and the great stare-out begins.”
—Jackie Torrence (b. 1944)